Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

dreaming of things to put in it to make a system out of the machine. In his reviewof the machine in PCC, which ran with a picture of lightning striking a small town,he wrote: "The Altair 8800 has two things (at least) going for it: it's here and itworks. These facts alone will guarantee that it is THE amateur computer for atleast the next year..."PCC devoted pages to the machine, which was the center of the now imminentrevolution. But as enthusiastic as Bob Albrecht was about the Altair, he still feltthat the key thing his operation had to offer was the initial magic of computingitself, not the hard-wired craziness experienced by the hardware hackers rushing toorder Altairs. There were plenty of hardware people hanging out at PCC, but whenone of them, Fred Moore, an idealist with some very political ideas aboutcomputers, asked Albrecht if he could teach a PCC class in computer hardware,Albrecht demurred.It was a classic hacker-planner conflict. Albrecht the planner wanted magic spreadfar and wide, and considered the intense fanaticism of high-level hacking assecondary. Hardware hackers wanted to go all the way into the machines, so deepthat they reached the point where the world was in its purest form, where "the bit isthere or it ain't there," as Lee Solomon put it. A world where politics and socialcauses were irrelevant.It was ironic that it was Fred Moore who wanted to lead that descent into hardwaremysteries, because in his own way Moore was much more a planner than a hacker.Fred Moore's interest in computers was not only for the pleasure they gave todevoted programmers, but also for their ability to bring people together. Fred was avagabond activist, a student of nonviolence who believed that most problems couldbe solved if only people could get together, communicate, and share solutions.Sometimes, in the service of these beliefs, Fred Moore would do very strangethings.One of his more notable moments had come four years earlier, in 1971, during thedemise party of the Whole Earth Catalog. Editor Stewart Brand had thrown thisfarewell-to-the-Catalog bash into turmoil by announcing that he was going to giveaway twenty thousand dollars: it was up to the fifteen hundred party-goers todecide whom he should give it to. The announcement was made at 10:30 P.M., andfor the next ten hours the party turned, variously, from town meeting toparliamentary conference, to debate, to brawl, to circus, and to hitching session.The crowd was dwindling: around 3 A.M. the I Ching was thrown, withinconclusive results. It was then that Fred Moore spoke. Described later by areporter as "a young man with wavy hair and a beard and an intense, earnestexpression," Moore was upset that money was being labeled a savior and people